How creative agencies can give back — and support the charity sector
Small and medium-sized charities have to create high-quality marketing if they’re going to raise income from public donations. But that’s a hard ask when creative talent is drawn to the advertising sector. The solution: leveraging pro-bono relationships with creative agencies who are eager to give something back.
Attention economy
Private donations from the public is one of the main ways charities fund themselves, meaning they need to be constantly attracting new donors. That, of course, means competing in the attention economy, often in the digital space, where there’s an endless battle for eyeballs. Charities thus need to invest properly in the kind of dynamic marketing and brand awareness seen elsewhere.
But herein lies the issue: charities struggle to attract top creative talent. Research from Personio showed that 52% of not-for-profits said attracting skilled staff was a major problem; 90% of UK-based not-for-profits said they couldn’t offer a competitive salary compared to the private sector.
The solution: agencies working pro-bono for charities.
Charities need to make use of pro-bono opportunities. Many agencies are seeking ways to do some good by taking on briefs without payment, or lower rates. This isn’t a new trend, but it’s our view that this needs to grow exponentially and become a lot simpler for both sides of the equation to access, and then activate.
Here’s one excellent example:
Communication agency adam&eveDDB’s recent work with suicide prevention charity CALM resulted in an incredibly impactful UK-wide campaign in 2022 called The Last Photo. It was brought to life across an installation at London’s Southbank, a TV commercial, and a broader campaign across print and social.
Our plan:
Our vision is to create a pro bono agency directory that acts as a two-sided hub, helping third sector organisations connect with agencies. We’ll publish the details of agencies specialising in marketing, digital design, visual identity, branding and social media expertise who are actively looking to offer their support to the third sector.
Read the full article here.
If you’re an agency or marketing professional and this sounds interesting at all, we would love to talk. Drop us a line.
